If you like something…

Author Notes:Most childhood evenings would wind-down with a cup of tea and a milk cookie. When we were lucky, the milk cookies would be accompanied by Grandma’s homemade raspberry or strawberry jam. A day wasn’t complete without at least one cup. As an immigrant family, our stock of tea was humble, Tetley or Lipton’s with a slice of lemon and sugar. On less lethargic occasions or for guests, my parents would plug in our samovar, a self-brewing teapot which keeps the tea extremely hot, and how I loved to drink mine.

My Dad likes his tea with a saucer and a spoon. My brother likes to boil a pot all day long. My sister-in-law loves her tea with mostly lemon.

As a teenager, while babysitting for a family adhering to a Macrobiotic diet, I discovered Celestial Seasonings. Lemon Zinger with honey was my favorite at the time. During college, I went everywhere with a piping hot cup of Red Zinger, my constant companion. The cute quotes on the Celestial Seasonings boxes kept me coming back for more.

As my income and kitchen space increased over the years, I started splurging on loose tea I could brew at leisure.

In one form or another, tea has always had a place in my life. Through the years, tea has migrated from my cup to other foods and recipe experimentations, like this tea cookie, a perfect companion for your favorite brew. —NakedBeet

Advertisement

Makes about 5.5 dozen 1/8" cookies

2 1/2
cups all purpose flour

1
teaspoon vanilla extract

2
tablespoons cream cheese

2 1/2
tablespoons loose earl grey tea

1/2
cup sugar

1/4
teaspoon salt

6
ounces coconut oil

2
teaspoons apple juice

Chocolate Ganache for dipped cookies (optional)

Grind the tea in a coffee grinder until it’s fine. Put the ground tea, sugar and salt into a food processor and mix together. After each addition, process for a few seconds to combine: flour, butter, cream cheese, vanilla extract and apple juice. Once the dough starts forming together, take the dough out of the processor and form into 2 balls. Refrigerate for 1 hr.

Preheat your oven to 375°. Keep one ball in the fridge while you’re working with the other one. On a slightly floured surface, roll out one ball to a 1/8? thickness.

Line your sheet with parchment paper. Once you roll out the dough, cut out forms with your cutter. Carefully lift each cookie onto the parchment paper. Once your cookie sheet is full (they will not expand too much, so you can place them fairly close to one another), place the sheet with the cookies on it in the fridge for less than a minute. Bake for 10-12 minutes. Let the cookies cool on the sheet before you slide them off and let them finish cooling on a wire rack. Keep re-rolling and cutting the shapes until all your dough is gone, or roll dough into a log and freeze for later.

Need Chocolate or gifting this? Ganache it up: Dip 1//3 of the cookie into chocolate ganache after the cookies have completely cooled off. In this case, make the cookie 1/4-1/2? thick and keep your ganache on the thin side so the cookies don't break.